"Now, Mr. Longly," he said, "or Captain Long, as I am told you are called, you have given very good evidence; but I have got a question or two to ask you, and be so good as to remember, that you are upon your oath. Now, Mr. Longly, alias Captain Long ----"
"Make haste," said Longly, bluffly; "for though they call me Captain Long, as you say, I am fond of short questions and short answers."
"Well, then, Captain Long," he continued, "be so good as to explain to us, if it is not an impertinent question, what you were doing at the time the prisoner at the bar was with you as you have stated."
"Why, I think it is an impertinent question, Mr. Parchment-face," replied Captain Long, who did not at all admire the demeanour of his cross-examiner. "I came here to give evidence of what he was doing, not what I was doing, and so I say it is an impertinent question, and I shan't answer it."
"Then the Court must compel you," replied the lawyer
"I am afraid you must put your question in another form," said the judge. The lawyer bowed, and tried it in a different shape.
"Pray, then," he said, "what was Sir Charles Tyrrell, the prisoner at the bar, doing at the time that he was with you, you have just stated?"
Captain Long, however, was not a man to be easily outdone, and he replied:--
"Why, part of the time he was walking up under the park-wall toward me; part of the time he was talking to me, and part of the time he was walking away again; part of the time he was turning to look at what we were about; part of the time he was coming back again to us, and part of the time he was going back to his own house;" and Captain Long put his hands behind his back, and looked the lawyer straight in the face, while a general and unbecoming titter ran through the court.
"Silence!" exclaimed the judge; "this is very indecent! I do not, however, think our learned brother can press the witness to say anything that might criminate himself."